Korean cosmetics firms shift focus to North America from China

• Published date: 11 March 2023
• Publication title: The Korea Times

Korean cosmetics companies are stepping up efforts to expand their presence in North America, where a growing number of young consumers have become fans of Korean music, movies and other cultural contents, while reducing their dependence on China, according to company officials.

Over the past decade, the cosmetics firms saw their sales grow at an explosive rate thanks to Chinese consumers who used to be big buyers of made-in-Korea beauty products. But this has become a thing of the past as more and more Chinese now prefer either high-priced European brands or affordable local ones.

Now, AMOREPACIFIC, LG Household and Health Care (LG H and H) and other domestic beauty product manufacturers have hired new models or rebranded their products to appeal to millennials and Gen Z consumers in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

AMOREPACIFIC, Korea's largest cosmetics company, recently changed the brand logo of its premium product line, "Sulwhasoo," from Chinese characters to English. This is the first time that AMOREPACIFIC dumped the Chinese characters that the company had been using since 1997.

"We can say that AMOREPACIFIC has completely changed the basic identity of Sulwhasoo that it had been promoting since the beginning of the brand's establishment," a local cosmetics firm official said."

The company hired K-pop musician Rose as its global ambassador in January and also featured models from diverse ethnic groups in its new Sulwhasoo advertisement.

"This is a symbolic moment demonstrating that the main target market for K-beauty is shifting to North America," the official added.

However, AMOREPACIFIC said the Chinese market is still important and its renewal efforts only aim to diversify global customer demographics.

"The reason why we changed our brand logo in English is to focus on the heritage of Sulwhasoo in the global market. We wanted to show the history and philosophy of the brand," an AMOREPACIFIC official said. "We hired Rose as a global ambassador to utilize her fame in North America."

LG H and H also refreshed its leading cosmetics brand, "The history of Whoo." It ditched the gold package design and herbal scents that suited Chinese customers' tastes.

The company shifted its sales and marketing strategies focusing on China to North America. In January, it appointed new CEO Moon Hye-young to lead LG H and H Americas, who built her career at Starbucks and Amazon in the United States.

Declining sales in China have prompted the two companies to shift their...